ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- If presidencies were akin to attractions at Disneyland, President Donald Trump's second term would be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

When it comes to spreading demagoguery, creating mayhem, generating chaos and turning people against one another, Trump really is in a league of his own. He has a knack for doing the wrong thing.

Trump's ...Read more

Last week, a federal court ruled that President Donald Trump had exceeded his statutory authority by imposing a raft of tariffs based on the "national emergency" supposedly caused by the longstanding U.S. trade deficit. Those tariffs are part of an alarming pattern: In his rush to enact his agenda, Trump frequently treats legal constraints as ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I've given commencement speeches. Many graduates want a warm bath. But what they really need is a cold shower.

This is what the class of 2025 needs to hear. And it wouldn't hurt the rest of America to listen in as well.

Dear graduates:

There is an expression that is usually identified -- some claim, misidentified -- as a ...Read more

May 25 marked five years after the gruesome murder of George Floyd that shook the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before we saw the shocking news videos of Floyd begging for his life with the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, the fear of death and infection from COVID-19 was ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- As a newsman who has been on the job for nearly four decades, I'm embarrassed to admit that the happiest people I know make a point of not following the news.

I don't blame them. These days, the process of following current events is often dark, depressing and disempowering.

Still, totally checking out of news coverage isn't the...Read more

It "seemed like a good idea at the time," Charlie Rangel remarked in 2021, referring to the draconian drug penalties he supported as a New York congressman in the 1980s. "Clearly, it was overkill."

Rangel, who died on Monday at the age of 94, came to that conclusion after enthusiastically supporting the war on drugs for decades, going so far ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I always wondered why Harvard turned out so many lawyers. Now, due to overreach by the Trump administration, I know the answer. It's all the better to sue you with.

My MAGA friends think that President Donald Trump can perform miracles. Yet, as a "Never Trumper" who thinks the con man is desecrating the country, I was skeptical. ...Read more

Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" continues to be highly praised over a month after its April 18 release date. People are still flocking to theaters to see this horror thriller set in the early 1930s in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Many have seen it multiple times for its deep analysis of the cultural and historical impact of Black music -- primarily the ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I feel sick. But that is par for the course. America is also not well. Too many Americans are afflicted with what Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter this week correctly diagnosed as "moral depravity."

Leiter was responding to the killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a young couple who worked for...Read more

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

I’m glad most people have abandoned chirping, “See ya in the funny papers.”

Because that quaint farewell would reopen old wounds, since folks will definitely NOT be seeing me in the funny papers.

You see, 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of my ill-fated attempt to become a professional cartoonist.

...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The God of politics has a wicked sense of humor as well as a taste for irony. She delights in making members of both parties confront thorny subjects they've been trying to avoid.

It makes for an agonizing moment for Democrats, and a complicated one. It's a moment filled with sadness for a former president but also anger from ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Racists take care of their own. And so naturally, President Donald Trump is offering affirmative action to Afrikaners.

Recently, the Trump administration put out the red carpet to welcome into the United States several dozen white South African refugees. In response, Black and brown migrants who are turned away at the U.S.-Mexico...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Just when I thought I was out of the Catholic Church, something extraordinary -- an American pope -- might pull me back in.

It's beautiful to see how many people, places and things are claiming a piece of Robert Francis Prevost, a 69-year-old Augustinian pastor who will now and forever be better known by the handle Leo XIV.

...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- For the last few months, the Trump administration has offered undocumented immigrants nothing more than scapegoating, harsh rhetoric and one-way passage to scary foreign lands.

That was the stick. Now for the carrot.

The administration is offering a $1,000 stipend plus travel expenses to undocumented immigrants who volunteer to ...Read more

Tyrades! by Danny Tyree

My son recently interviewed for an internship as part of his master’s degree program in engineering management.

We’re still waiting for news, but it started me thinking about the whole phenomenon of job interviews.

Back in the late Fifties, when my father was manager of a farmers cooperative, a young man ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Harvard University stands accused of not defending a group of students on the margins.

You don't say! I could write a book on that subject. Oh wait, I did. In 1993, just a few years after graduation, I wrote a memoir about being a Mexican American student at America's oldest university.

In the fall of 1985, I was one of just 35 ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- I've been wrestling with the story of the Wisconsin judge who went quickly from "your honor" to "the defendant."

The more I hear about this case, the less certain I am that Hannah Dugan -- a Milwaukee circuit court judge -- did anything wrong.

Of course, you'll never convince President Donald Trump and MAGA of that. But what do ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Losing a presidential election is bad enough. But still not understanding why you lost several months later? Well, that's even worse. You don't want to end up there.

In politics, a little introspection can go a long way. After all, if you don't know what's broken, how can you fix it? And if you can't identify mistakes, ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- The U.S. presidency is like a high-stakes poker game. And for President Donald Trump, immigration is his ace in the hole.

Even when he doesn't have the cards, or when his chip stacks are short, the public's animosity toward the foreign-born keeps him in the game.

According to a new poll by Pew Research Center, Americans have ...Read more

What do the Peace Corps, desegregation of the military, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II have in common?

They were all established by presidential executive orders, or EOs.

Executive orders are all over the news of late, as President Trump uses his presidential authority to undo many of President Biden’s ...Read more